Wal, he wasn’t. But we was in the dark as much as the rest of the town, till one evenin’ when the section-boss called me to one side. He had somethin’ t’ tell me, he said. Could I keep a secret–cross my heart t’ die? Yas. Wal, then–what d’ you think it was? The sheriff was camped right back of the widda’s–on Rogers’s Butte!
“Pardner,” I says, “don’t you cheep that to another soul. Bergin is up there t’ keep Curry from puttin’ the widda out.”
The section-boss begun to haw-haw. “It’d take a hull regiment of soldiers to put the widda out,” he says, “–with them greasers of mine so clost.”
“I’ll go down that way on a kinda scout,” I says, and started off. When I got clost to the widda’s,–about as far as from here to that hitchin’-post yonder–I seen a crowd of women and kids a-lookin’ at somethin’ behind the house. I walked up and stretched my neck. And there in that tie-pen was a’ even dozen of new little pigs!
“Ma’am,” I says, “this is good luck!”
“Good luck?” repeats the widda. “I reckon it’s somethin’ more’n just good luck.” (Them’s exac’ly her words–“Somethin’ more’n just good luck.”)
“Wal,” I goes on, “oncet in a while, a feller’s got to admit that somethin’ better’n just or-d’nary good luck does git in a whack. Mebbe it’ll be the case of a gezaba that ain’t acted square; first thing you know, his hash is settled. Next time, it’s exac’ly the other way ’round, and some nice lady ’r gent finds theyselves landed not a’ inch from where they wanted to be. But neither case cain’t be called just good luck, no, ma’am. Fer the reason that the contrary facts is plumb shoved in you’ face.
“Now, take what happened to Burt Slade. Burt had a lot of potatoes ready to plant–about six sacks of ’em, I reckon. The ground was ready, and the sacks was in the field. Wal, that night, a blamed ornery thief come ’long and stole all them potatoes. (This was in Nebraska, mind y’. Took ’em fifty mile north and planted ’em clost to his house. So far, you might call it just bad luck. But–a wind come up, a turrible wind, and blowed all the dirt offen them potatoes; next, it lifted ’em and sent ’em a-kitin’ through the windas of that thief’s house–yas, ma’am, it took ’em in at the one side, and outen the other, breakin’ ev’ry blamed pane of glass; then–I’m another if it ain’t so!–it sailed ’em all that fifty mile back to Slade’s and druv ’em into the ground that he’d fixed fer ’em. And when they sprouted, a little bit later on that spring, Slade seen they’d been planted in rows!
“They ain’t no doubt about this story bein’ true. In the first place, Slade ain’t a man that’d lie; in the second place, ev’rybody knows his potatoes was stole, and ev’rybody knows that, just the same, he had a powerful big crop that year; and, then, Slade can show you his field any time you happen to be in that part of Nebraska. And no man wants any better proof’n that.”
“A-course, he don’t,” says the widda. “And I’d call that potato transaction plumb wonderful.”